That same night, Luca couldn't help it. He stopped the car and stepped out of it once more. No longer feeling the same uneasiness, he marched down the road onto the walkway to the front door. Outrage filled his core, he wasn't a stranger! The mother knew damn well who he was!

Making it up to the door, he pounds on it this time. Answering this time wasn't the boy, but his mother. The angry look on her face made Luca think of the day he told her why he couldn't take care of the kid in the first place. She always assumed he never wanted a kid, and never thought she would see him again.

"What are you doing here?"

"Why have you never told him about me?"

"Why should I? You left! You didn't want a kid and I was stuck with him!"

Stuck with him? He could feel his face getting hot from those three words being formed in a sentence by the mother. The same words his own mother said the day Luca Sr. got convicted. Her reason for going off to Ukraine and leaving him with the man who transformed him.

"How about you talk a little nicer about our kid?"

"He's MY kid. It was clear when you didn't want to care for him."

Like she was caring for him...

"Still smoking like you did when you were pregnant? How about leaving him at your mom's house when you want to have a social life? You aren't taking care of him!"

"You have some nerve! Coming to my house and insulting me the way you are!"

"Fuck you. I didn't even want to talk to you anyway."

"Then why are you here?"

"I want to talk to him, let him know that he has a dad who thinks about him everyday."

"You blew that chance when you walked out on me!"

Looking into the house, he can see that the kid was watching from behind a wall. He could hear every word the two were saying, and the look on his face expressed that he couldn't believe it.

"Would you really like having Heiman's, Poltera's, and who ever's gangs coming after you? That's why I couldn't. Not because I didn't want to. Who am I even kidding, trying to tell you this when you've already made up your mind about the man you think I am."

"A man takes care of his children-"

"A real man knows when to swallow his pride and let it go. I said all I needed to say and the only person I wanted to talk to heard it. Have a nice life, I promise I won't be here to make it uncomfortable for you..."

Turning away from the doorway, he walks off the porch. His son, whose name he didn't even know, darting to the door but being held back by his mother, whose name he didn't care to remember. Looking back, he sees the scene unfold. He blows a kiss to the kid and keeps walking, back to the car.

Stepping into the car, he looks back at the house one last time. A solid reminder that every loose end of his past has been dealt with in one way, shape, or form it seemed. None in the ways he had hoped, but you can't get everything you want in life.

Starting the car up, he steps on the pedal and drives off, hoping he didn't do more harm than good...



He pulls his eyes away from the photograph long enough to put it back into his wallet. Folded up and wedged to the bottom the photo sits, waiting for the day Luca pulls it out again. Standing up and walking, despite how bad his head feels, he makes his way into his bedroom.

Sitting on the bed, he reaches down underneath it and pulls out another picture, this one small enough to be hidden without folding it up. Looking at the faces, he recognized when this one was taken.

It was him, Victoria, and his father.

It was when he and Victoria first started dating, and he took her to meet his father, who was still in jail for a crime he didn't commit for a change. Back when Luca still looked up to the piece of shit.

How happy they all looked in the picture, without a single care in the world really. Odd that someone on death row would be happy, but it is what it is. He likely thought that Luca was becoming a man and was glad that he got to meet who he thought was his son's future wife before he died.

He leans down and kisses the picture, and then stands up. Walking, picture in hand, out to the balcony of his apartment. The night darker than his soul at this point. Reaching into his front pocket, he pulls out a lighter.

Part of him smiles and the other part cries for what he's going to do next.

He kisses his finger and places them to the faces in the picture that don't belong to him.

Flicking the lighter on, a tear rolls down his face as he weakly says:

"Next time we meet, it's forever."

Dropping the photo into the fire, it goes up in flame. He stares at it until the fire burns every last shred of the picture's existence before putting it out.